


Not a Single One

by Durindil_Moonraven



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 22:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21126431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Durindil_Moonraven/pseuds/Durindil_Moonraven
Summary: Just a short 1,000 word drabble that came to find after watching the 5th POTC movie.  I was quite sad that we didn't get to see Will and Jack say a few last words to each other at the end, so I wrote what the scene could have looked like.





	Not a Single One

The sun shone down on the Pearl as it floated in the bay, the crew milling around as they waited for instructions from their captain. Jack’s attention, however, was elsewhere.  


Once again, he had been involved with the dead, once again he had gotten mixed up with a sea-curse, and once again he had come out of it all alive, this time with a loyal crew and his beautiful Pearl creaking under his feet. He sighed. And once again, it had been a Turner who had instigated it all.  


Jack wondered if he would ever be free of Turners invading his life and causing trouble. Bill had been with him when Barbossa had mutinied and Cortez’s gold coins had cursed them all. Will had been there to finish that adventure and again with him to battle Davy Jones, and was, until recently, the captain of the Dutchman, and now Henry, the one who had been with him to get his Pearl back and defeat Salazar and his lot.  


Even Elizabeth, though only a Turner by marriage, had upended his life in various ways. Some to be mentioned in polite company, while others would only ever feature in his dreams. A smirk crept across his face as some of those thoughts began to filter through his mind.  


“Ahoy the Pearl!” came a voice that Jack would have sworn he would never hear again.  


Jack swung around and caught the sight of white sails against a blue sky as the Dutchman, a simple ship once more, pulled up alongside the Pearl. At her helm, a completely un-cursed Captain Will Turner waved to Jack and called out, “Permission to come aboard, Captain?”  


Jack snorted and waved Will over. “Since when has a Turner ever needed permission to board any ship of mine? You all just show up eventually, anyway.”  


Will laughed and grabbed a rope, swinging neatly over to the Pearl and landing with all the grace 20 years as a captain of his own ship had given him. The Pearl’s crew who remembered the last time young Will Turner has graced their decks, surrounded him and welcomed him back with open arms.  


“It’s right good to see you looking so well, young Captain Turner,” Gibbs said, slapping Will on the back as he directed him through the crowd to where Jack stood waiting for him.  


“It’s good to be able to look at myself in the mirror again, Mr. Gibbs,” Will returned with a smile and then faced Jack. “Hello, Jack.”  


Jack swaggered over to where Will was standing and looked him up and down. Will was wearing the same clothes he had the last time Jack had seen him, the same day almost 20 years ago when Will had become the captain of the cursed Dutchman. He hadn’t aged a day, either. Lucky bastard. Elizabeth would be pleased, Jack thought. “I suppose you’re off to see the missus now, eh? Now that you’re all…cleaned up and what not…” Jack sneered slightly at the thought of being clean.  


“Yes, I am,” Will smiled fondly as he thought of the woman whose arms had been waiting for him for so many years now.  


“You know, that boy of yours is everything that you and Elizabeth were when you were young…in all the wrong ways.”  


Will smiled at Jack’s words, knowing that that was Jack’s way of saying he approved of Henry. “Why thank you, Jack. I’m sure you and he got along well while he was with you. Behaved himself, I hope.”  


“Not in the least,” Jack returned. “That’s why I had to send him back to his mother.”  


Will smiled. “So, now that you have met my son, is it too much to hope that you’ll be dropping the eunuch cracks?”  


“Of course. Even if the boy is the spitting image of you and your father both in looks and in behavior, I shall forever think of you as a eunuch.” Jack raised his nose in the air with a slight sniff of false decorum.  


“Of course,” Jack sighed. Jack would never change. “I suppose I should get going. My family is waiting for me after all, and I have to say, dry land will be a welcome change after the Dutchman.”  


“Three generations of Turners on my ship and I can’t keep a single one of you.” Jack sighed. “Still say you’d make a good pirate. Sure you want to go back on land? What would you do there? Probably take up…blacksmithing again, eh?”  


Will cocked his head to side in thought. “Perhaps. I have to say that between what has happened at sea with my father, myself and Elizabeth, and now Henry, the Turners may indeed be landbound for a while.”  


Jack frowned. “Right good waste of pirating blood, that is.”  


“Maybe so, but personally, I have had enough of the sea to last me a good long while.”  


Jack looked into Will’s eyes. Even though Will may be committing himself to a land-lubber’s life, the sea still rolled in those eyes, Jack knew, and it never would completely vanish. The sea became a part of every pirate sooner or later. And sooner or later, the sea claimed them all back again. “Perhaps you have at that,” he said, remembering just where Will had been for the last 20 years. “Well, my Pearl rides the waves again and I’m off to find my horizon. You best be gettin’ back to your family.” Jack shooed Will away, breaking the seriousness of the moment.  


“Yes, I will. Thank you for taking care of Henry while he was with you.”  


“Only did as much fer him as I did for the two generations before him.” Jack answered casually. “Three generations…that makes me sound right old, doesn’t it?”  


“You, Jack? Old? Never,” Will grinned at his old friend and turned back to his ship, now ready to put into port for the last time for a good long, long while.  


As Will sailed off, Jack watched him go and wondered if they would see each other again when the sea came to claim them all.


End file.
